Questions raised on smoking ban enforcement

Friday

The state public health director paid a visit Thursday to Marshall County, where he was asked about enforcement of the public smoking ban that takes effect. Jan. 1.

The state law that will ban smoking indoors in public places as of Jan. 1 came up Thursday when the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health met with a small number of health and emergency preparedness officials.

Dr. Eric E. Whitaker led a roundtable discussion in a Marshall County Courthouse meeting room after touring the county health office down the street as part of a pledge he made when appointed in 2003 to visit all the health departments in the state.

The practical question of how the smoking ban will be enforced was raised by Craig Riggins, an environmental health officer in the county department.

"I know if people are not obeying that, (others) are going to be calling the Health Department (with complaints)," he said.

Working on the law’s enforcement and other ramifications "will be the next big thing on our plate," said Whitaker.

"Hopefully, we’ll see this get implemented and go well," he said. "There will be some conflict because people will feel their rights are being infringed upon."

Whitaker also outlined the department’s top five priorities: community engagement; bioterrorism and emergency preparedness; health disparities; public health infrastructure; and patient safety.

"We have over 200 programs, but those five things are the focus of what we do," he said.

The session had been billed in a news release as a meeting with "community leaders," but most of the approximately 20 people on hand were employees of the state agency, the county health office or the Peoria City/County Health Department, which operates Marshall County’s under contract.

The only county officials were Sheriff Rob Russell, 911 coordinator Hank Zilm, county veterinarian Alan McCully and Mary DeWalt, an assistant in the county Emergency Management Agency office.

Russell pointed out that mental health has become an increasingly large issue, with police and other emergency responders being called to several suicides and attempts in the past year. While mental health services are generally under the Department of Human Services, Whitaker said his department has a group looking at suicide risk factors from a public health standpoint.

Whitaker has now visited 76 of the state’s 95 health departments, some of which cover more than one county, according to a news release. Many of those not yet visited are north of Peoria, including the counties of Bureau, Henry, LaSalle, Putnam, and Stark, according to a map on the department Web site.